industry

This study aimed to investigate the effects of overtime on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Occupational Fatigue Exhaustion Recovery (OFER-15), Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS) among food industry rotational shift workers.

This descriptive study was conducted among 85 rotating shift workers in an Iranian food industry company. Samples were selected through a census with criteria considered among all 102 workers who were asked to work overtime. A demographic questionnaire, the DASS, the PSQI, and the OFER-15 questionnaire were used to collect information. Shift workers completed the questionnaires before and after overtime.

Poor sleep quality and occupational fatigue significantly increased after overtime by 28.3% (chi-square=11.02) and 36.4% (z=-4.71), respectively. In the PSQI subscales, sleep duration increased by 37.6% (z=-4.62), sleep efficiency by 9.5% (z=-2.29), sleep disturbance by 14.1% (z=-3), and the use of sleeping medications by 3.5% (z=-1.89) after the overtime period showing statistically significant increases in the categories of relatively poor and very poor sleep. Furthermore, the subscales of OFER-15 showed that acute fatigue (t=-3.98), chronic fatigue (t=-7.79), and inter-shift recovery (z=-3.47) were statistically more undesirable after overtime. Additionally, in the DASS subscales, participants reported moderate to extremely severe stress by 23.3% (z=-4.521), anxiety by 28.2% (z=-4.47), and depression by 23.5% (z=-4.45), all showing a statistically significant increase after overtime.

Overtime work leads to sleep issues, increased reliance on sleeping medications, and higher occupational fatigue among industrial workers on rotational shifts. This ultimately results in greater stress, anxiety, and depression.

Accidents caused by human error often lead to severe incidents. Correctly understanding human errors is essential to prevent such occurrences. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to conduct a scientometric analysis of human error research in various industries.

This study was conducted using scientometric methods. It includes all articles published and indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) database. The study is a review that aims to synthesize and analyze the existing literature. In total, 845 articles were included in this study. VOSviewer and Bibliometrix, an R package, were used to perform the scientometric analysis of these articles.

Industrial human error research is generally related to marine safety and accidents, the aviation industry, nuclear power plants, oil and petrochemical industries, occupational accident analysis, occupational fatigue, ergonomic issues, safety analysis of process systems, and the construction industry. Concepts such as “Human error,” “Human reliability analysis,” and “Human reliability” (with frequencies of 196, 113, and 64, respectively) were identified as the most frequently used keywords in the field of human error research.

The co-occurrence map of keywords in human error reveals that most studies focus on diagnosis and assessment rather than preventing human errors. Only a tiny percentage of studies address the prevention of human errors. Therefore, greater attention needs to be paid to prevention and protective measures.

Despite abundant resources, the automotive industry is reported to adversely impact the environment owing to the use of heavy machinery, diverse and governmental management policies for car production per hour, remarkable employed labor force, production cycle timing, etc. For this purpose, many studies involving environmental risk management have been conducted. To this aim, the present study has been carried out in pre-paint part No. 2 of IKCO (preparation process). In this regard, using FUZZY FMEA and VIKOR methods, the identified risks were assessed and reformative measures and solutions were classified, respectively. A total of 15 individuals considered HSE experts of IKCO were selected as a statistical sample size according to the Morgan table. Consequently, the high level risks were identified and appropriate solutions were suggested to reduce the environmental effects, and according to achieved scores, “torch adjustments based on compliance report” was selected as the compromise solution.IKCO should consider torch adjustment based on compliance report actions as its first priority.

Medical tourism, as a flourishing and profitable industry, has attracted the attention of many countries. The purpose of the present research was to propose a model to improve the competitiveness of Iran's medical tourism industry. In terms of philosophical foundations, the present study was interpretive. It is applied and developmental in nature. It was also inductive and followed a qualitative approach. The data collection method was a semi-structured interview following a review of the related literature. The research population comprised 110 hospitals formally permitted to treat foreigners. The sample consisted of 10 interviewees selected in a convenience sampling method. The data collection continued until data saturation. The collected data were analyzed in MAXQDA2020. Having coded the transcribed interviews, the authors extracted 175 keywords (Memo). After standardization, the codes were divided into 15 main categories and 77 sub-categories, which included: government support, standardization of medical services, development of medical tourism, quality of medical services, cost of medical services, hospital facilities and equipment, branding, marketing, advertising, culture, and so forth. As the findings showed, Iran is not yet prepared for the globalization and competitiveness of the healthcare services it provides. In the first place, attention to and satisfaction of domestic needs seem to be essential along with a scientific and technological development, standardization, advertisement and marketing of health services.

Treatment of combined industrial wastewater from industrial parks is one of the most complex and difficult wastewater treatment processes. Also, the accuracy of biological models for the prediction of the performance of these processes has not been sufficiently evaluated. Therefore, in this study, the International Association on Water Quality (IAWQ(-Activated Sludge Model No. 1 (ASM1) was implemented for the Jey industrial park in Isfahan province, Iran.

The Jey IPWWTP process is a combination of anaerobic and aerobic biological processes. To evaluate the overall performance of IPWWTP, organic compounds, suspended solids, nutrients, attached biomass, and some operating parameters were measured during 6 months. Then, the biokinetic coefficients of aerobic processes were determined using Monod equations. Finally, the aerobic processes were modeled using ASM1 implemented in STOAT software.

The values of the biokinetic coefficients K, Y, Ks, Kd, and µmax were calculated as 2.7d-, 0.34 mg VSS/mg COD, 133.36 mg/L COD, 0.03d-, and 0.93d-, respectively. Based on the default coefficients and conditions of the ASM model, the difference between the experiments and model prediction was about 2 to 98%. After calibrating the ASM model, the difference between the experiments and prediction in all parameters was reduced to less than 10%.

Investigations showed that the default coefficients and operation conditions of the ASM1 model do not have good predictability for complex industrial wastewaters and the outputs show a low accuracy compared to the experiments. After calibrating the kinetic coefficients and operating conditions, the model performance is acceptable and the predictions show a good agreement with the experiments.

The global e-cigarette market has proliferated and is increasingly dominated by transnational tobacco companies. While Southeast Asian countries have received relatively little attention in e-cigarette research, the region represents an area of potentially untapped growth for the industry. We review the e-cigarette situation in Southeast Asia in terms of the e-cigarette markets, advertising and promotion of e-cigarettes, reported health impacts of e-cigarette use, and policy responses in the region.

We examined e-cigarette market data from the Euromonitor Global Market Information Database (GMID) Passport database, searched in the academic literature, grey literature and news archives for any reports or studies of e-cigarette related diseases or injuries, e-cigarette marketing, and e-cigarette policy responses in Southeast Asian countries, and browsed the websites of online e-cigarette retailers catering to the region’s active e-cigarette markets.

In 2019, e-cigarettes were sold in six Southeast Asian markets with a total market value of $595 million, projected to grow to $766 million by 2023. E-commerce is a significant and growing sales channel in the region, with most of the popular or featured brands in online shops originating from China. Southeast Asian youth are targeted with a wide variety of flavours, trendy designs and point of sale promotions, and several e-cigarette related injuries and diseases have been reported in the region. Policy responses vary considerably between countries, ranging from strict bans to no or partial regulations.

Although Southeast Asia’s e-cigarette market is relatively nascent, this is likely to change if transnationals invest more heavily in the region. Populous countries with weak e-cigarette regulations, notably Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines, are desirable targets for the transnationals. Regulatory action is needed to prevent e-cigarette use from becoming entrenched into these societies, especially among young people.

Background & Aims:

The aim of this study was to examine industrial waste minimization through identifying physicochemical properties and recyclable components and classifying hazardous wastes. On the other hand, the importance of this study is that it envisages opportunities as the eco-industrial park through using industrial waste management at international and national levels to reduce waste and pollution.

All the industrial units of industrial towns of Qom province (Shokohieh, Salafchegan, and Mahmoud Abad) and Taghroud industrial area, which have been active in the production of chemical, pharmaceutical, metal, and non-metal materials, were considered as the studied society in this cross-sectional study. The quantity and quality of industrial hazardous waste were evaluated by a questionnaire approved by the Iranian Environmental Protection Organization and field inspections.

The results of the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the industrial hazardous wastes of industrial towns, including Shokohiyeh, Salafchegan, Mahmoud Abad, and Taghrud (1239 industrial units) demonstrated that 118.449 tons/day of industrial wastes and 15.743 tons/day of hazardous wastes, including 65% solid waste, 31% liquid waste, 3% semi-solid waste and less than 1% and equivalent to 0.02%), were produced in industrial towns. It was found that the industrial units of non-metallic minerals (35.25 tons/day) and then food industries (31.9 tons/day) had the highest amount of industrial waste and dioctyl phthalate units (DOP, 5.8 tons/day), and chemical industry (4.84 tons/day) and lead recycling units (4.14 tons/day) produced the highest amounts of special waste, respectively. Based on the relevant diagrams, the highest values of hazardous wastes were related to Basel Convention code (Y9) for unit process waste DOP (511.5 tons per day) and Basel Convention code (Y31) for lead recycling unit wastes (3.587 tons/day).

Planning and necessary training for managers and technical officials of industrial units in the field of hazardous waste management and the development of a comprehensive plan in this regard is inevitable.

Noise is an important occupational safety and health issue in many workplaces. Noise annoyance is a strong measurable mental response. It is a reaction that a person expresses to the noise exposure. Thus, this study investigates the correlation between noise exposure and its annoyance in terms of mental health components.

This was a correlational descriptive study conducted on 100 workers. Respondents were recruited by a simple random sampling method. The equivalent sound level (LeqA) was determined using dosimetry. The numerical scale of ISO/TS 15666:2003 was used to measure noise annoyance. Mental health components were determined using the SCL-90 mental health questionnaire. Data analysis was performed in SPSS software (version 22) using Mann-Whitney, Kruskal–Wallis, and correlation tests.

The median of mental health and noise annoyance were 38 and 6.5, respectively. A positive correlation was observed between equivalent sound level (LeqA) and noise annoyance score (P<0.001, r=0.92). A significant correlation was found between mental health components (depression, anxiety, self-morbidity, obsession and compulsion, aggression, morbid fear, paranoid thoughts, psychosis, and sensitivity in interpersonal relationships) and equivalent sound level (P<0.001). Also, a significant correlation was observed between noise annoyance score and mental health components (P<0.001).

We concluded thatin order to enhance the mental health of employees and increment efficiency and performance, it is recommended that appropriate control methods should be applied.

This systematic review aims to estimate the proportion of medical schools and teaching hospitals with conflicts of interest (COI) policies for health research and education, to describe the provisions included in the policies and their impact on research outputs and educational quality or content.

Experimental and observational studies reporting at least one of the above mentioned aims were included irrespective of language, publication type or geographical setting. MEDLINE, Scopus, Embase and the Cochrane Methodology Register were searched from inception to March 2020. Methodological study quality was assessed using an amended version of the Joanna Briggs Institute’s checklist for prevalence studies.

Twenty-two cross-sectional studies were included; all were conducted in high-income countries. Of these, 20 studies estimated the prevalence of COI policies, which ranged from 5% to 100% (median: 85%). Twenty studies assessed the provisions included in COI policies with different assessment methods. Of these, nine analysed the strength of the content of medical schools’ COI policies using various assessment tools that looked at a range of policy domains. The mean standardised summary score of policy strength ranged from 2% to 73% (median: 30%), with a low score indicating a weak policy. North American institutions more frequently had COI policies and their content was rated as stronger than policies from European institutions. None of the included studies assessed the impact of COI policies on research outputs or educational quality or content.

Prevalence of COI policies at medical schools and teaching hospitals varied greatly in high-income countries. No studies estimated the prevalence of policies in low to middle-income countries. The content of COI policies varied widely and while most European institutions ranked poorly, in North America more medical schools had strong policies. No studies were identified on impact of COI policies on research outputs and educational quality or content.

Industry involvement in alcohol policy is highly contentious. The Drink Free Days (DFD) campaign (2018-2019) run by Public Health England (PHE), an executive agency of government, and Drinkaware, an industry-funded ‘alcohol education charity’ to encourage middle-aged drinkers to abstain from drinking on some days was criticised for perceived industry involvement. We examine the extent to which the DFD campaign was supported by local-authority Directors of Public Health (DPHs) in England – which have a statutory remit for promoting population health within their locality – and their reasons for this.

Our mixed-methods approach included a stakeholder mapping, online survey, and semi- structured interviews. The stakeholder mapping provided the basis for sampling survey and interview respondents. In total, 25 respondents completed the survey, and we conducted 21 interviews with DPHs and their local authority (LA) representatives. We examined survey responses, and coded free-text survey and interview responses to identify key themes.

While some respondents supported the DFD campaign, others did not promote it, or actively opposed it, due mainly to concerns about conflicts of interest and the legitimacy of industry involvement in the campaign. These were considered to undermine PHE’s independence and deflect attention from more important, evidence-based policy interventions such as alcohol pricing while conferring vicarious credibility on Drinkaware. We also found low levels of knowledge about alcohol-related harm, the effectiveness of different policies to address these and the policy-influencing strategies used by the alcohol industry.

The findings highlight the dangers of industry partnership and potential conflicts of interest for government agencies and the ineffectiveness of the campaigns they run at local and national levels. They demonstrate the need for caution in engaging with industry-associated bodies at all levels of government and are thus of potential relevance to studies of other health-harming industries and policy contexts.

Small industries have a large share of the country's industries, on the other hand, the risk of a work accident in such industries is higher and have poorer safety and health performance compared to larger industries, which are generally due to financial constraints, poor attitude of managers.At the same time, employees in small industries are deprived of occupational health counseling services full-time or part-time due to the small number of workers It is suggested to adopt supportive policies in the form of packages for providing occupational health counseling services as well as health improvement programs in small industries, which are successful programs in small industries in other countries with the aim of maintaining and promoting the health of workers working in this environment. In addition to the required support policies, employers and industry managers should also be aware of the importance and necessity of implementing safety and health requirements in these industries.